Hut 8 AI data center lease $9.8B in Texas lifts shares nearly 30%

Hut 8 AI data center lease at its Beacon Point campus in Nueces County, Texas is a 15-year, triple-net deal worth $9.8B upfront. It covers 352 MW of IT capacity for an “investment-grade” tenant and includes a 3% annual rent escalator. If Hut 8’s three 5-year renewal options are exercised, the contract value could rise to $25.1B. On full operation, the Hut 8 AI data center lease is projected to generate about $655M in annual revenue. The project targets initial energization in Q1 2027 and delivery of the first data hall in Q3 2027. Built using NVIDIA’s DSX reference architecture, Beacon Point’s partners include American Electric Power, Vertiv, and Jacobs. This is Hut 8’s second commercialized AI campus under its greenfield “power first” model, after River Bend in Louisiana. Market reaction was strong, with the stock up nearly 30% on the announcement. For crypto traders, the Hut 8 AI data center lease signals a continued shift from Bitcoin mining toward longer-duration AI infrastructure cash flows. That may help reduce miner earnings volatility linked to BTC price swings, although it is unlikely to be an immediate driver for spot BTC demand. In Q1 2026, Hut 8 reported $71M revenue but a net loss of $253.1M, mainly from $295.7M in unrealized digital-asset losses, while disclosing about $1.3B in combined cash and bitcoin reserves as of March 31. Bottom line: the Hut 8 AI data center lease improves the outlook for steadier, power- and AI-demand-linked revenue, which could modestly stabilize broader crypto-miner sentiment rather than directly move BTC in the short term.